Working from home is challenging enough just to get your own stuff done, but when you have a manager who micromanages, who creates unnecessary work with onerous status requests or who isn’t familiar with the technology and needs extra support, it can feel like there’s an additional burden.
First of all, make sure that you are set up to work from home. Secondly, check to see if additional requests from your manager are actually a new role that you need to approach differently. You might not have a title change, and your manager might not even have officially designed it this way, but the changing market has upended previous plans and may have caused an unofficial restructuring.
Once you’re all set up and clear about your immediate priorities and deadlines, you can turn your attention to managing your manager. Managing up is part of your job, even if your manager is driving you crazy. You are on their team, and you should try to support them. Here is a five-step process for working with the manager who doesn’t know how to work from home:
1 – Schedule a meeting to reset expectations and norms
Even if you had a great working relationship before, the market has changed, and your work environment has changed, so you need to establish a new way of working together.
Schedule a meeting that is dedicated to resetting expectations and norms. Ask how your manager wants to communicate – what updates and reports do they need, how frequently, what medium (phone, email, scheduled meeting).
Agreeing on communication guidelines may ease some of the micromanaging. Agreeing on the format for updates and reports may trim some of the work, or at least allow you to plan your time accordingly.
2 – Expect and plan for inefficiencies
If you feel like you suddenly have a lot of new work, it could be because you’re not as efficient as you were before – understandable given how much has changed.
If your deadlines haven’t changed to add some buffer for your new way of working, ask your manager for an extension or extra help. As new work is assigned, don’t promise the same turnaround that you did before. Also:
- Expect and plan for inefficiencies.
- Build in a slower pace by setting longer timeframes.
- Don’t schedule as many meetings.
- See if there is work that you can postpone till you’re up to speed on working remotely or back in the office if that’s your preferred space.
3 – Course-correct when requests fall outside the norm – i.e., train your manager
Having a meeting to clear the air and building in some buffer time should help, but your manager may revert back to old habits and start to micromanage you or increase the workload again. Break the habit loop by calling attention to the fact that your manager is doing something outside of what you agreed upon. Be polite, of course, and keep it light, so that your manager doesn’t get defensive.
For example, if your manager suddenly wants an additional report, you could say, “In our meeting, you were OK with weekly reports. Has that changed?” You remind them of what you agreed upon (weekly), so they don’t just fall back on old patterns. But you also ask about changes, which lets them know that you’re ready and willing to be flexible. They might just be having a bad day and created the additional work out of panic.
Course-correcting right in the moment helps change your manager’s behavior. You may have to do this multiple times.
4 – Weigh the pros and cons of volunteering to do more
It could be that trying to change your manager’s behavior is more work than just doing the extra reports or spending more time helping them on the technology.
Since you don’t know for sure how much longer you will be working from home, it’s probably worth the investment of time and effort to change your manager’s behavior. However, you might instead offer to attend meetings for them, if you’re more comfortable with video conferencing, or to run analyses or put together the snazzy presentation decks.
Jumping in and saving your manager the hardship could endear you to your manager. If you take this route, document all the extra work you’re doing and be prepared to speak up for yourself during your performance review, especially if your manager doesn’t seem to notice.
5 – Revisit what’s working and what isn’t on a regular basis
Whatever you decide, set monthly reminders in your calendar to revisit your work arrangement. Just because you decided something at the outset doesn’t mean that you can’t reconsider, especially if it’s not working for you or your manager.
Checking in also lets your manager know that you are tending to your working relationship, that you are trying to be helpful and that you are flexible and willing to adapt.
Finally, regular reminders to revisit how you’re working is a smart ongoing habit to keep, so you don’t fall into bad habits or get complacent on the job.
Check in with your own team and your colleagues
While you’re working on managing up, don’t forget about managing down (your team) and across (your colleagues).
Are you asking too much of other people? On the flip side, are you giving enough guidance? Don’t assume that your team or your colleagues are as comfortable with working from home as you are.
Check in and ask explicitly how they are feeling and what they need. In this age of social distancing, many are craving more connection, not less.
A version of this post originally appeared in my column for Forbes.com.
